The Rift
Page 96
Frank looked at the battered red telescope in surprise. “What is it?” he said.
“It’s the birthday present Una sent me,” Jason said. “But don’t worry,” he added as Frank turned pale,
“she signed your name.”
“So,” Jessica said as she looked, with her one good eye, at the message from Bill Marcus, the President’s political consultant, “you think I should call him back?”
“That depends on whether you want to run for office,” said Pat. He was reclined as far as possible in a chair by Jessica’s bed, and he picked repeatedly at a mandolin as he twisted at the tuning pegs.
“Do I want to run for office?” Jessica asked.
“If you think,” Pat said, “that I’m going to play folksy tunes at your rallies and otherwise behave like a buffoon, you can think again.”
Jessica frowned and touched the bandage over her left eye. She’d had an operation that morning, a much more elaborate procedure than she’d undergone with the laser. Instead of cooking the interior of her eye with a laser, this time her eye had played host to a freezing probe that had chilled her eye tissue and, it was hoped, returned it to its normal position.
She was now at home in a semi-darkened room. She had been told to lie with her head on two pillows and avoid straining at bowel movements for at least six months.
She planned to be back at her desk in the morning. Perhaps she would wear a dashing Moshe Dayan eye patch.
Army troops were firmly in control of Spottswood Parish. The place had also been flooded by Justice Department investigators, all now in the process of mortally offending the locals with their earnest Yankee tactlessness.
It was beginning to look as if those responsible for the Spottswood Parish massacres were truly dead. Even David Paxton, the sheriff’s son, who according to some of the chronologies might have set off the whole thing. He had got across the bayou and was walking south, but he’d run into the main body of the A.M.E. evacuees, who had also crossed the bayou at night and were heading in the same direction. David had been shot dead on the spot, and there were about ten people who claimed the honor of killing him.
The person Jessica most wanted to talk to was the swamp hermit known as Cudjo. But that strange man hadn’t been evacuated with the others: as the helicopters came in to carry the others away, Cudjo had faded back into the bayous and swamps that were his home. Perhaps he was just shy, but there was a story that a warrant was out for the man in another part of the state, and that he’d slipped away from the law. In any case, Jessica doubted that Spottswood Parish would ever see him again. Jessica looked at Bill Marcus’s message again, then sighed and held out the piece of paper to Pat.
“Dial it for me, will you, sweetie?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She looked at the ceiling and sighed. “I have but one eye to give for my country,” she said. Jason heard the sound of bells chiming “Claire de Lune,” and he followed the sound to Arlette sitting cross-legged beneath an awning near the infirmary tent. Sorrow brushed her face as she held the watch in both hands and gazed down at it. He crouched down next to her, touched her arm.
“You okay?” he asked.
She closed the watch, gave him a sad little smile. “I miss my grandfather,” she said.
“I know.”
“How’s your dad?”
“He’s planning on becoming some kind of media tycoon,” Jason said. She looked at him in surprise.
“He thinks he can make a lot of money off my story.” Jason shook his head. “I always wondered what it would take to get him to pay attention to me. Now I know.”
Arlette leaned forward, kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“All his plans depend on my cooperation, though,” Jason said. “And if he wants me to cooperate, there are things I will want him to agree to.” He looked at Arlette. “Things involving you, maybe.” He rose from his crouch. “Let’s go find Nick and your mom,” Jason said. “I want to tell them good-bye.” Nick and Manon stood in the shade of some trees across from the Post Exchange, some of the few trees that had survived the quakes and Army Engineers bulldozers. In the helipad beyond, the engine of a Huey began to cough, then spit black smoke while drooping rotors began to turn.
“So,” Nick said, “what do you think? I shouldn’t have any trouble getting a job, not with so much reconstruction going on. Maybe lodging would be a problem, but I don’t see it being any worse than here.”
“I don’t know,” Manon said. “I don’t know where I stand with everything gone.”
“You’re standing in the same place as me,” Nick said. “I don’t know if I have a single possession left. Even these clothes belong to someone else.”
The Huey’s engine roared. Blades flogged the air. Manon looked up at Nick. “Because there’s nothing left?” she said. “Is that a reason to live with someone? Really?”
“It makes the decision easier,” Nick said. “I would think.” She came slowly into his arms. Oh God, he thought as he kissed her, I hope this works. He suspected, however, that it would. A few days ago, he’d been resigned to his own death. Now, having survived all that the river and all that mad, sorrowful humanity could throw at him, he had the feeling his luck was in.
Starting from nothing, sometimes, could be a good thing.
Dust and wind buffeted them as the Huey flogged its way into the sky. They winced away from the blast, then began, hand in hand, to stroll back toward the camp.
Nick smiled as he saw another couple heading toward them. “Hey there,” he said. Arlette looked from one to the other, recognized in their eyes a mirror of the glow that was in her own.
“Hey,” she said softly. “What’s going on?”
Nick let his arm slip around Manon’s waist. “Your mother and I,” he said, “we’re, ah, going to try this family thing again.” What have we got to lose? he thought dizzily. A smile broke across Arlette’s face. She threw herself into her parents’ embrace. Nick hugged her and stroked her, warmth throbbing through his heart; and then looked up at Jason, saw him watching, standing a few feet away, a wistful, lost little smile on his lips.
“Congratulations,” Jason said. He had to tilt his head to the left to say it.
“Thank you.”
“My dad’s come,” Jason said. “We’re flying out later today. I wanted to say good-bye.” Sadness whispered through Nick’s veins. He left Manon and Arlette and walked to the boy, put his arm around Jason’s shoulders.
“I’ll miss you,” he said. It was the truth, strange though that seemed. Jason looked up, and desperate hope blazed across his face. “Can I come see you later?” he asked. “I’d like to come for a visit.”
“I don’t know where we’ll be living,” Nick said. “We may not have room.” His words faltered at the look on Jason’s face, at the blighted dreams and despair… “We’ll try,” Nick said. “If we can arrange it, we’ll try to bring you out.”
Over Jason’s shoulder, Nick saw Manon flash him an exasperated look. Nick gave her an apologetic smile.
We’re a family again, Nick thought at Manon, you and me and Arlette. But Jason can’t have that. We owe it to him to be kind. It could so easily have gone the other way.
Hope flared again in Jason. “Thanks, Nick,” he said. “I’ve given Arlette our phone number in Los Angeles. She can call and let me know where you’re staying.”
“Good,” Nick said. “I hope we can talk soon.”
Jason threw his arms around Nick, squeezed tight. Nick hugged him back, careful of his broken ribs.
“You’ll be okay,” Nick said. “You know that, right? After what you’ve been through, adolescence in Los Angeles is going to be easy.”
“I guess,” Jason said.
And then, as they stood in their embrace, the earth gave a sudden jolt. Thunderous booms crashed through the air. Nick and Jason stepped back, legs and arms both wide for balance, as the earth shivered, a series of sprawling, looping rolls that almost sent t
hem tumbling like circus clowns. And then it ceased. The southeast horizon boomed as the earthquake sped away. Nick stood on the green earth, his heart lurching crazily in his chest.
“Aftershock,” Manon said, in the sudden, expectant silence.
Nick and Jason looked at each other, and Nick saw that they both understood the pitiless message sent in that moment by the violence of the earth. That the world was not done with them; that they were atremble always on the edge of the crevasse; and that in the end the world, this ancient and multifarious remnant of an exploded star would have its remorseless way.
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